Mike Wood MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 22 Jun 2026 · UK Politics: Pro-Israel Influence · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman gets to the heart of the issue, as he so often does. Protest stops being peaceful protest when it involves using weapons to harm and intimidate those who hold a different view. To suggest that open and transparent advocacy by British citizens and established communal organisations constitutes an improper or malign conspiracy is not only factually incorrect but treads into deeply troubling territory. As I have said, the petition is not supported by credible evidence. Instead, it invites vague suspicion of covert—

• 22 Jun 2026 · UK Politics: Pro-Israel Influence · Hansard source

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  We have seen that Iran, seeing itself as not only a regional but an increasingly global power, is becoming increasingly willing to make physical attacks and also take sub-threshold action against our democracy. In conclusion, we do not support a public inquiry into the imaginary threat of pro-Israel lobbying. To grant one would be to validate a petition that lacks credible evidence and fuels antisemitic conspiracies. Instead, the Cabinet Office and Government must focus their finite resources on the genuine systemic dangers that face our democracy. Let us strengthen our defences against the hostile state apparatus in Beijing and Moscow, protect our parliamentarians from actual espionage, and maintain a political culture where open, transparent discussion from all sides of the middle east debate can thrive without fear of malicious vilification.

• 22 Jun 2026 · UK Politics: Pro-Israel Influence · Hansard source

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  The difference is that every day of every week of every year there are concerted attacks from Russia and China on our democratic system, on communities around the country and across online media, to try to set one part of our community against another, and they do not care who wins. When the hon. Gentleman spoke earlier about donors—mostly about donors to the Labour party, but I know there are donors to other parties—he described them as pro-Israel because they happened to be Jewish and had not questioned the actions of the Israeli Government. It is hard to find a clearer breach of the international definition of antisemitism than to hold Jewish people in the UK accountable for the actions of the Israeli Government, which is what the he appeared to do.

• 22 Jun 2026 · UK Politics: Pro-Israel Influence · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. We are here to debate e-petition 752646, which calls for a public inquiry into what the petitioners term “pro-Israel influence” on UK politics, party policies and public debate. I thank the petitioners for raising concerns about foreign influence, transparency and public confidence in democratic institutions, but I share the misgivings of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) about the apparent motivations of some the petition’s supporters. Although Parliament must always take seriously any issue that touches on the integrity of UK democracy, the evidence that has been put forward does not support the allegations. There is clearly deep public concern about the conflict in Gaza and the west bank, and that strength of feeling runs across communities and all parts of the country. As the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) made clear, there is nothing wrong with criticising the political decisions of any Government, including that of Israel—I have certainly done so myself in relation to illegal settlements—but it is concerning when Israel is singled out for scrutiny in a way that no other country is. When donors who happen to be well—

• 22 Jun 2026 · UK Politics: Pro-Israel Influence · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman did not have the courtesy to give way to me, but I will give way to him.

• 22 Jun 2026 · UK Politics: Pro-Israel Influence · Hansard source

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  I give way briefly.

• 22 Jun 2026 · UK Politics: Pro-Israel Influence · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more strongly. Let me be entirely unambiguous from the outset: His Majesty’s Opposition firmly reject the premise of the petition and any suggestion that Israel—or any British organisations expressing solidarity with it—represent a malign or covert influence on British politics and democracy.

• 18 Jun 2026 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  I thank right hon. and hon. Members from across the House for their thoughtful, measured and often heartbreaking contributions. I would particularly mention the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) for securing and leading this debate, and my right hon. Friends the Members for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) and for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), who spoke movingly about cases involving their constituents and the heartbreaking effects this scandal has had on them. The infected blood scandal remains the most devastating treatment disaster in the history of our national health service. The scale of the tragedy—the lives cut short, the families shattered, the trust destroyed—is something this House and indeed the entire country must never forget. The victims of this scandal, those infected and those affected, have spent decades fighting the establishment for truth and justice. Now that the truth has been laid bare by Sir Brian Langstaff’s inquiry, it is the duty of the state—and that means all of us in this House—to deliver that justice without further delay. It is entirely right that we begin by recognising the significant progress that has been made, because the establishment of the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, with the commencement of actual payments, represents a monumental milestone in this decades-long journey. In doing so, I again place on record my profound gratitude for the foundational work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) when he was the Paymaster General. It was under his determined stewardship that the Government accepted the moral case for compensation and passed the legislation needed to establish the delivery body to administer this scheme. He faced an incredibly complex technical challenge, but his deep personal commitment to the infected and the affected communities ensured that the crucial groundwork, including the initial framework for multibillion-pound interim payments, was laid. I know that the Paymaster General and the dedicated civil servants at IBCA are building on that foundation and working intensely to stand up a complex compensation scheme from scratch. We welcome the fact that more than £2.1 billion has been paid out to more than 3,200 victims. For those living infected victims who are already registered with existing support schemes, these payments offer a long-overdue measure of financial security and tangible recognition of the horrific wrongs that they have endured. Getting billions of pounds out of the door to those who need it is no small administrative feat, and we support the progress that the Minister and the Government have made on that front. However, it is exactly because we share the Government’s desire to see the scheme succeed that we must urgently raise the profound frustration being voiced by those who are still waiting. Progress for living infected victims on existing schemes has accelerated, but the reality for the thousands of affected victims and the estates of infected victims who have tragically passed away is still one of agonising delay. Since the registration of intent opened, more than 18,500 registrations have been made, yet we know from IBCA’s own figures that the number of payments made to affected individuals—the widows, the widowers, the parents and the children of those who died—remains painfully low. The same is true for the number of payments to those claiming on behalf of deceased infected individuals. There have been thousands of registrations, but only a tiny fraction of claims from estates and affected people have been fully processed and paid. We hear from families across the country who feel that they are stuck in an unbearable limbo. They have watched the inquiry conclude; they have heard the apologies from the Dispatch Box; and they have seen the compensation scheme launched, yet they still wake up every day wondering when their claim will even be assessed. For the families who have lost loved ones, time is a cruel companion. Of course, many of those waiting are now very elderly. Tragically, victims and affected family members are dying before they receive the compensation that they are owed. We must ask ourselves: what comfort is a compensation scheme if it arrives too late? IBCA has stated that it expects to bring in all currently registered claims from living infected people and estates by March 2027. We must push to see if that timeline can be safely accelerated, because for some, even next year is simply too far away. Of course, as more time passes, the real value of the offers reduces. Will the Minister look again at uprating payments in line with the consumer prices index, so that victims and their families are not financially disadvantaged because their claims take longer to process? That brings me to a specific, acute concern that has been raised repeatedly by victims and their families, as well as by hon. Members today. It is one that I urge the Minister to address. It is the issue of the burden of proof, and the requirement to provide evidence that is, in many cases, practically impossible to access. Let me give the House a harrowing example. There are parents who suffered the unimaginable trauma of watching their children die as a result of infected blood products decades ago. Under the current requirements, some of those mothers and fathers are being told that for the claim to be processed, they must provide documentary evidence that they lived with their child at the time. Think about what is being asked here. We are asking grieving parents to source official paperwork from 40 or 50 years ago to prove that their own child lived under their roof. How many of us in this House could easily produce a four-decade-old document proving our living arrangements with our own families? It is not just an administrative burden; it is deeply distressing and re-traumatising. It makes victims feel as though they are not believed. We see similar issues for estates; they are trying to track down decades-old medical records, or navigating complex probate rules relating to relatives who died in the 1980s or 1990s. We understand that the authority has a duty to protect public funds and to ensure that claims are valid. However, we cannot allow the pursuit of administrative perfection to become the enemy of compassion. When the state has been responsible for the systemic cover-up and destruction of medical records, as the inquiry so damningly revealed, it cannot turn around and demand that victims produce those same missing records. The burden of proof must be relaxed. We must always be mindful that we are talking about huge sums of taxpayers’ money, but we need a system that operates on the balance of probabilities, applying flexibility, common sense, and, above all, humanity. We must allow caseworkers at IBCA to display the compassion that Members have spoken about this afternoon. I urge the Government to work with IBCA to review the evidence requirements immediately. We must empower caseworkers to make compassionate judgments, rather than forcing them to stick to rigid bureaucratic checklists that punish the victims of state failures. I know that the Minister shares my desire to see this issue resolved, and the tone of our debate reflects the shared resolve of this House, but good intentions must translate into urgent operational improvements. We need to rapidly scale up the processing of claims for the affected and the estates. We need to ensure that the legal and administrative support that is provided to claimants is truly adequate to help them navigate the hurdles without adding to their distress. The Opposition stand ready to support the Government on any measures needed to expedite the process. We will vote for the necessary resources, support the necessary regulations, and work collaboratively to remove any legislative hurdles. For more than 50 years, the victims of the infected blood scandal were ignored, gaslit and denied justice. This Parliament promised to do everything that we could to right that wrong. Significant progress has been made; we praise those who have worked hard to deliver it and, above all, the incredible work of the many victims and their families over many years, but our promise is not kept until the final payments are made, until the grieving mother is recognised, and until the families who lost everything finally see the tangible justice that they have fought their entire lives to achieve. Let us work together, across the political divide, to tear down the remaining bureaucratic barriers. Let us push IBCA to move faster, to act with maximum compassion, and to finally close this darkest of chapters with the dignity and urgency that the victims so deeply deserve.

• 17 Jun 2026 · Steel Tariffs · Hansard source

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  Engineering firms in Kingswinford and South Staffordshire are integral to automotive and aerospace supply chains, so how can it be right or in the national interest that they pay a tariff of 50% on the steel they import and use, while European producers making those parts with the same steel pay low or no tariffs?

• 17 Jun 2026 · Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support · Hansard source

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  I am sure that one of the messages the Minister will have heard from pub owners is that the unique way that pubs are valued for business rates—through an assessment of their fair maintainable trade—means that if they invest in their own business, one of the first things that happens is they face a higher bill, long before they have started to repay the money that they invested. Will the Minister consider addressing that with a business rates holiday to provide space for businesses to recoup some of their investment before it is taken off them in business rates?

• 17 Jun 2026 · Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentlemen recognise that if the level of alcohol duty is one of the big obstacles facing rural pubs, what we need to be able to do is widen the differential in the duty rates paid on beer sold on draught in pubs or licensed premises compared with bottles and cans drunk at home alone? That would be impossible if we rejoined the European Union. [ Interruption. ]

• 17 Jun 2026 · Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend recognise that, for many rural locations, the rural pub is the last-standing business in the village? It is the post office, the village store, the job club, the parent and child club and the club for the elderly and lonely. I have even seen, through Pub is the Hub, a barber in the lounge of a pub. It cuts people’s hair during the day and serves them drinks in the evening. Does my hon. Friend agree that when the Government impose extra fiscal pressures on pubs, what they lose is probably worth far, far more than the revenue they think they are gaining?

• 15 Jun 2026 · Brain Cancer · Hansard source

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  Behind every statistic is a human face. For me, it is my senior parliamentary assistant, Dan Horrocks—a father, husband, a four-time cancer survivor and a brilliant colleague who has fought this disease for 14 years. We are incredibly proud of Dan’s strength and his tireless campaigning, for which he was deservedly awarded the British Empire Medal in the new year honours list. Dan’s journey began with persistent headaches. Three separate GPs missed it. It was only caught because of the keen eyes of a local optician at a free eye test. That is the first hurdle: diagnosis. Far too often, symptoms are dismissed as routine migraines, but the second hurdle is even more devastating. Once a patient is diagnosed with an aggressive glioblastoma, they are offered the NHS gold standard of treatment: surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Let us be honest: that gold standard has barely changed in decades. It is designed to manage the disease for a short time, not to cure it, and when it runs its course, our constituents are effectively told to go home and to prepare to die. These outcomes do not happen by accident. They are the direct result of structures and choices made over many years. When a clinical trial does happen, like the groundbreaking trial established in memory of Margaret, the sister of the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh), it happens because a handful of grieving, determined people refuse to take no for an answer. If it requires extraordinary political intervention just to start one trial, the system is fundamentally broken, and we need a radical shift. First, we must demand clear, measurable targets, specifying exactly how many clinical trials we expect to see, how many patients will be recruited and who is accountable. Secondly, we need an immediate, aggressive focus on repurposing existing licensed drugs that already control other cancers to see whether they can cross the blood-brain barrier and save lives today. We cannot allow the next generation of patients to be left stranded. Dan and the thousands of families like his are not asking for miracles; they are looking for justice.

• 15 Jun 2026 · Defence Investment Plan · Hansard source

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  The Minister was clear that the previous Defence Secretary asked him to remain in post; will he be equally clear about what exactly he disagrees with in the letter that the previous Defence Secretary sent the Prime Minister about the defence investment plan last Thursday?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Preparedness for National Emergencies · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker, for this vital debate on our nation’s preparedness for national emergencies. We live in an era defined by profound and accelerating global volatility. The primary duty of any state is the protection of its citizens: we must ensure that the United Kingdom is as properly prepared to meet the threats of an unstable world as it is to respond to a domestic crisis. Our adversaries are becoming bolder. We have seen hostile state action inching closer to our shores, with alarming incidents such as Russian-flagged vessels anchoring mere miles off the UK coast and directly above the critical transatlantic telecommunication cables that underpin our digital economy. When the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster introduced the UK Government’s resilience action plan last year, he promised that it would assess the UK’s resilience, enable a whole of society approach and significantly improve public sector resilience. Almost a year later, however, what we find is a framework characterised by high-level bureaucratic ambition that is fatally undermined by deep structural fragility, broken promises and ministerial inaction. I must start with the foundational prerequisite for national resilience—the economy. I understand why the Government want to talk about resilience planning, but they ignore the elephant in the room: a collapsing economy locked in a doom loop of high spend, high debt and high taxes. True national resilience requires immense fiscal headroom and economic stability. A Government who are actively hollowing out that macroeconomic foundation are inherently making Britain more vulnerable and far less equipped to absorb and recover from future crises. Turning to the machinery of central Government, the Amber Book, updated in April 2025, rightly makes explicit the leadership role of the Cabinet Office in the cross-Government response to national emergencies, yet its operational execution relies entirely on seamless co-ordination with lead Government Departments. Nearly a year ago, the Government explicitly committed to publishing refreshed lead Government Department expectations to clarify the exact role of the Cabinet Office and other Departments in planning and responding to crises. Ministers promised that we would have those by spring 2026. It is now approaching the middle of the year, but there is seemingly no sign of those vital expectations. Why does that administrative failure matter? Take the grave case of a national power outage. The resilience action plan claims that the Cabinet Office would provide oversight, but experts at the Royal United Services Institute have explicitly warned that the current fragmentation of responsibilities between the Cabinet Office, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and arms-length bodies like the National Energy System Operator risks creating profound confusion. They warned that this fragmentation will fundamentally slow down central Government’s response during an acute crisis. Ministers must urgently rectify this failure and explain to the House why they have failed to publish those expectations on schedule, leaving interdepartmental boundaries dangerously ambiguous. This failure extends to the Government’s promises to the private sector. The resilience action plan includes a commitment to use the critical national infrastructure knowledge base to map out the various resilience standards to which businesses in those vital sectors are held. While Ministers have confirmed that the interactive map of vulnerabilities has been completed, they have not provided any timeline on their progress in mapping out those resilience standards. Furthermore, businesses were promised a comprehensive package of support to help them to improve their own resilience. The Government committed to publishing further information on business impacts alongside the national risk register, including a dedicated business section on the Prepare website. Where are they? None of the commitments seems to have been fulfilled. If the Government expect the private sector to take a leading role in improving our preparedness, they must honour their commitments to support businesses in doing so. At a local level, local resilience forums are the absolute frontline of our emergency response, yet the foundational wider guidance detailing the fundamental role of those forums in emergency response was last updated in 2013. That means that we are asking our local emergency planners to combat the complex, cascading threats of 2026 using a conceptual framework that was drawn up in what may as well have been a different world. The previous Government launched the emergency alert system in March 2023 after almost two years of public testing. It was an important part of our preparedness for a national emergency, allowing Government and the emergency services to send a text alert to mobile phones in a situation where there is perceived to be an immediate risk to life. However, a ping on a mobile phone cannot be a substitute for robust national infrastructure, and strategic documents are meaningless if the core guidance for our frontline responders remains over a decade old. It is now time for the Government to move beyond issuing glossy action plans and start doing the hard foundational work of actually preparing this country for the realities of the modern threat landscape.

• 20 May 2026 · Banking Hubs · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and allowing me to give one further example that I hope the reviewers will consider. Lloyds will this month close the last existing bank in Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, leaving all of my constituents, whether urban or rural, without a proper bank. However, none of the villages are eligible for banking hubs because of the presence of building societies—sometimes part-time building societies —within the villages. Does he agree that while our building societies provide a fantastic service, they do not provide the range of services that my constituents, particularly those with small businesses, need that could be offered through a banking hub?

• 28 Apr 2026 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Last week, I tabled a written question to the Foreign Secretary, asking whether Jonathan Powell was subject to scrutiny vetting before or after he was appointed as the Prime Minister’s special envoy on the Chagos negotiations. I have not yet received a response. Given that Morgan McSweeney appeared to tell the Foreign Affairs Committee this morning that the vetting process began only after Powell was later appointed as National Security Adviser, how can I secure an official answer from the Foreign Office to this basic question before Parliament prorogues?

• 23 Apr 2026 · UK-EU Relations · Hansard source

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  I think the House and the public outside will have heard that the Minister is refusing to give that commitment to the representatives of this vital sector. However, he will know that the high cost of fertilisers is one of the biggest pressures on British farming and food prices. Raising carbon prices to the level of the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism is projected to add around £100 a tonne to that cost. At a time of high food costs and squeezed food security, does he really think that now is a sensible time to hammer British farming yet again?

• 23 Apr 2026 · UK-EU Relations · Hansard source

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  The UK has become a global leader in agri-tech and particularly selective breeding, largely because of our flexible regulatory framework, including the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023. That would not have happened if we were still members of the European Union. The BioIndustry Association says that dynamic alignment would threaten UK leadership in biotech innovation. Will the Minister commit to securing a carve-out for precision breeding so that our success in this vital sector is not threatened by new or future EU legislation?

• 22 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes · Hansard source

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  I begin by paying tribute to our fantastic public servants, civil servants and postal workers. The vast majority give so much in service of our country and the general public. This week, perhaps more than any other, is a reminder that it is Ministers’ responsibility to provide the political leadership so that those workers can deliver. The Minister’s decision to terminate the Royal Mail statutory pension scheme is enormously consequential and will be welcomed by many in this House, but more so by our many retired postal workers. While I appreciate being given advance sight of today’s statement, it does seem that the Minister, particularly in regard to the civil service pension scheme, has come to the House with more of a plan than a statement. It is clear that the current situation, as the Minister said, is the culmination of a series of entirely unforced errors by Capita. Its failure to adequately administer the CSPS has caused significant financial distress to thousands of former public servants, such as my constituent Chris. He has found himself without the pension he was relying on at just the time that his wife has had to step back from work after a cancer diagnosis. These people worked hard and planned responsibly for retirement, on the basis that the CSPS would be there for them when they needed it. Capita’s failures have left them anxious, frustrated and, in many cases, desperately out of pocket, but in all too many cases that I am aware of, Capita has been utterly unresponsive. Sadly, the constituents and others from around the country who have contacted me about Capita simply would not recognise the Minister’s claim of answer times being down to two minutes. This is not the way to reward a career of dedicated public service. Last year, the National Audit Office highlighted that Capita had failed to meet three of the six key transition milestones that had been due by March 2025. All those milestones related to scheme design and operational readiness. In October last year—two months before Ministers had to make a final decision on the transition to Capita—the Public Accounts Committee noted that Capita had missed milestones to deliver its IT systems. The Committee called on the Cabinet Office to fully develop contingency plans before making a final decision about whether Capita should take over administration on 1 December last year. The Minister’s Department confirmed that—four months after the transition was completed—Capita had still not met three transition milestones, while one was only partially met It is only at this point that the Minister has brought forward the contingency plans—the same contingency plans that the Public Accounts Committee recommended months before—but the warning signs were there, and they should have been clear and obvious. Despite that, last November, a full year and a half after the Government took office, they wrote to trade unions, confirming that Ministers were pressing ahead with Capita’s contract.. We all agree that it is in everyone’s interests that the operational stability of the CSPS be restored as quickly as possible. After all, Capita won the contract because of the failure of the previous MyCSP contract, and clearly a further change would mean more disruption, causing further harm to those who have already been so badly impacted. Ministers must ensure that Capita meets its contractual obligations consistently, and that any penalty clauses in the contract that can be enforced are enforced, to allow compensation to be paid. The Minister has some questions to answer. For those who are missing out because of Capita’s failings, will the Minister unequivocally commit to delivering a functioning service in the timeframe that he has set himself? Will he confirm that his Department has delivered the standardised mitigation letter that CSPS members can share with lenders to explain their temporary financial difficulties? That was promised last month; has it been delivered? I understand that there will be a commercial session on 28 April to discuss the penalties that Capita is facing, and what officials have called the “wider commercial position”. Will the Minister be attending in person? Will he commit to updating the House at the earliest opportunity, following that meeting? Will he elaborate on exactly what his officials mean by Capita’s “wider commercial position”? Finally, and most importantly, what contingency plans has the Minister put in place in case it becomes necessary to terminate Capita’s contract for the CSPS, just as he has today terminated its contract for the Royal Mail scheme?

• 22 Apr 2026 · Government Procurement Strategy · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) on securing this urgent question—I know how rare it is for a Government Parliamentary Private Secretary. [ Interruption. ] She is not any more—I apologise. I welcome the Government’s ambition to modernise public procurement, but ambition, as ever, must be matched by delivery. There are a number of questions that the Minister must answer today. The Government promised transparency through a new online register of commercial agreements. When precisely will that register be live, and will it be comprehensive from day one? Ministers often speak of backing small business. Will the Minister publish in a single, accessible place every Department’s SME target, its latest outturn and whether it is on or off track? On prompt payment, how many suppliers have actually been excluded from major contracts for failing to meet the required standards? If this strategy is truly about value for money, why have the Government still not resolved the fragmentation, poor-quality frameworks and poor use of data and technology that were identified by the National Audit Office? On national security, contracting authorities are now required to assess risks not just from prime contractors, but from associated persons and subcontractors. How many procurements have been referred for national security consideration, and how many suppliers have been excluded or challenged as a result? What assurances can the Minister give that public contracts are not still flowing into supply chains with links to hostile states? What assessment has the Minister made of the EU’s emerging “Buy European” policies? Is that not a protectionist barrier by the European Union? Finally, if social value is now mandatory at 10%, what assessment has been made of the risk that it adds cost and complexity, particularly for SMEs? I know that the House will want clear answers.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 22 April.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Can the Prime Minister deny that Downing Street considered appointing Matthew Doyle to a diplomatic position?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Peter Mandelson: Government Appointment · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Peter Mandelson: Government Appointment · Hansard source

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  On that point, will the hon. Gentleman give way?